In Her Hand
I wake up to the sound of bustling outside my window. Has it started? Have the feminists begun their attack? Are we being invaded-.
Oh God. I'm starting to sound like Kenji. I reinforce my idea that keeping away from him as much as I can would be the best thing to do. For both of us.
Kicking off the sheets, I gain some cognition on today's events. It's the festival, it's past noon, and I've got nothing better to do. I contemplate on staying in the room for the rest of the day since I already skipped half of it, but I force myself to get up and get dressed anyway. I don't want to be locked up in four walls doing nothing. It reminds me too much of the hospital, and the... incident. I'm still uncomfortable with accepting the fact that I will never live a normal life since it happened.
It's jarring that I'm getting used to downing more than a dozen pills in one sitting. I cap every bottle and try to push them so they form a good semblance of order, but it couldn't be helped. There were too many for my tiny desk. I give up and don my jacket. It's a tight fit. I feel like a spring roll.
Just as I was about to enter the hallway, the door across mine creaks open and out pops a head. "Has it started? Is the feminist invasion coming?" Kenji hisses like an alley cat. It seems like the hullabaloo from outside stirred him, too.
"Funny. I was thinking the same thing."
"Hisao, my man! I knew that was you the moment I saw you." The way he says it, I feel like he doubted that it was actually me, the guy from across the hall. Kenji slinks between the crack of his door and gives me a hearty pat on the shoulder. His morning breath reeks of leeks, eggs, and - is that whiskey? I don't even want to know. This guy really needs to take a hint about personal hygiene, and especially personal space. "Great minds think alike, you know," he continues, squeezing my shoulder in what he believes to be an affirming manner. I don't want to be associated with your train of thought, Kenji.
"So I've heard," I reply, gingerly picking his hand off and brushing it back to him. "Got any plans today?"
"Whaddaya mean?" he asks.
"The festival. You do realize it's today right?"
His cheerful mood suddenly drops, like if I told him that his dog died, or that he was getting kicked out of Yamaku. Wait, scratch that. I think he might like getting kicked out of Yamaku, seeing as he thinks it's a feminist stronghold and everything. Getting expelled might as well be a one way ticket to safety for him.
I really need to stop thinking Kenji's thoughts.
"I've got plans," he finally says. I was starting to worry if he was ever going to function again. "None of them involve joining that festival. It's the devil's fund raiser, and I will not spend a cent that will help those feminists further their plans to rule the world."
"Chill out," I groan. "It's probably not what you think. Probably. And besides, there's food and drinks outside. There might be a game or two that'll be actually fun. And who knows, maybe you'll get to spend the day and have the chance to be -," dare I say it, "normal."
"Normal isn't an option for me anymore," he frowns. "Not when I know the truth. There's evils in this world, man. Evils. And it's my responsibility to save the planet from those evils. Because if I don't, who will?" The poor guy's going Peter Parker on me. "I've got all the food and drink I need, and I don't need to face the outside. I won't need to resupply for at least a week."
"Do you happen to have whiskey in there with you?" I ask, my voice dripping with saccharine.
"What!? Who told you that? Did someone put up surveillance in my room? Did you bug me!?" Kenji goes berserk on me. I'm glad the entire dorm's devoid of life apart from me and him right now. The ruckus would've attracted many a curious gaze.
"Just intuition. You
did say great minds think alike." I can't believe I'm obliging this guy.
"Er- yeah. I did. And that is one good idea you thought of, that I happened to have thought of, too." He's back to being calm in a fraction of a second. I need to take notes on nonchalance from this guy. "Anyway, I've got to bunker in. Get ready for what's to come. Fight the good fight, my man." He hammers a fist into the air and leaves it hanging there for an awkward five seconds. I think he was expecting me to bump his fist or something.
"Yeah, I'll be seeing you," I murmur, and he nods. As I walk down the hallway, I can hear half a dozen instances of metal scraping against metal from his room.
The school is crowded with people, and half of the population isn't made up of students. It seems like the locals come to visit Yamaku once a year for its festival, and the students' parents are probably in this human sea, too. This school feels solitary at times, but a part of me is glad that right now isn't the case.
I find myself in front of a takoyaki stand. I fish in my wallet for some spare change and treat myself to a good healthy breakfast of octopus balls. Okay, that actually sounds wrong on so many levels. It's very oily, and I could almost hear Emi reprimanding me for eating something very unhealthy for my first meal of the day. Damn you, thoughts. I'm starting to feel guilty for actually eating this junk, but not guilty enough that I don't finish all four balls. I find a nearby vending machine and drown my meal with a can of chilled coffee, which earns me the second regret of the day. Coffee probably isn't good for a guy with a heart problem. I'm definitely stopping all these bad habits.
I take another sip.
Starting tomorrow. I might as well enjoy what I won't be doing anytime soon.
I don't have anything better to do anymore, so I aimlessly wander through the numerous booths that the festival had to offer. There was a ring toss game (where I lost a few bills from, and all I got from it was a stupid keychain), a photo booth, a fishing game booth, a-.
"Yo," says the girl managing the fishing booth. I don't know why I didn't notice her at first; she was eye-catching from her height, to her dark skin tone, to her strange choice of uniform, visible behind the thin apron she's wearing. "Are you gonna help me out here or what?" Though she phrased herself in a commanding manner, she was smiling.
"Huh?" I turn toward her for a better look and realize that she looked familiar. She should be; she was a classmate of mine from 3-3. As for her name...
"Who are you again? Sorry, I'm not big on names," I admit, slightly embarrassed. We're barely twenty in the room and I don't even know hers.
"It's Miki Miura, and I was wondering when you'd show up. The class rep 'slash' Prez assigned you and me to take care of the fishing booth for this hour. And your hour's half-up."
We have a booth? Crap. I must've missed the note while I was daydreaming last week. At least I think it was declared last week. "Shizune's gonna kill me, isn't she?" I gulped.
"Not if she doesn't find out. We don't want her to find out, do we?" Is she blackmailing me?
She winks.
She's definitely blackmailing me.
"Think fast," she shouts, and hastily tosses a plastic apron at me, which I miserably fail to catch. She laughs at my failure. "Thirty minutes of sitting down and waiting for someone to rent a net isn't going to kill you, you know."
Thirty minutes with this brash girl? I'm not so sure I'll survive.
I sigh in defeat and deflate onto a tiny stool beside her. On the bright side, she's kinda hot, so at least my eyes won't be bored.
We both fold our aprons and stack them on top of each other. Miki is counting our earnings, while I'm reliving actually having a little fun watching students fish using tiny nets the size of an average hand. Two of our classmates approach us, and Miki reports our income to them while they record it the class' little book-of-numbers.
"You got any plans after this, Nakai?" She asks, bending down slightly to peer at me, her necktie hanging loosely around her collar, her face a little too close to mine, her sternum-.
Woah there. My face backs away instinctively. "Uhh, I've got nothing, actually, no... And how do you know my name?" I stare at her.
"Everyone knows who you are, foo'." She lets out a bark of a laugh. "One more name to memorize isn't going to be a problem for us
locals." She emphasizes that last word with a bit of a country twang.
"Fair point," I reply. "Just call me Hisao. Calling me Nakai makes it sound like you're calling my dad."
"Aye, Nakai," she replies and mock-salutes me. I leer at her some more. "Hisao," she says apologetically after, and sticks out her tongue at me. "No need to get your panties in a bunch." I am both taken aback and amused by her colorful vocabulary.
"Dunno about you," she says, "but I'm gonna loaf around on the bleachers." She motions her head toward the track, behind the multitude of booths scattered around the campus.
"A better plan than any," I remark. "I don't have anywhere else to go anyway."
"No friends?" Astute observation, Miki.
I lower my head in embarrassment. "No," I admit.
"I get it," she replies. "You're the new kid, and you just got here. It's not like you're going to hoard the entire school's attention for friends. Or
girls," she added. You could almost hear the laughter in her voice, though clearly she wasn't WAHAHAing. "It's still too early to give up. You'll find a pal or two, I guarantee it." She flashes me a smile, and it's probably the most genuine smile I've seen on her. I can't help but smile back.
"Yeah, thanks," Oh Hisao, you slayer.
Though I'm already familiar with the school's track-and-field, I felt that it was more gentlemanly if I let the lady lead the way, especially if the lady was the one who suggested wasting time there. And waste time we did. I took in the hustle-and-bustle of the festival from my perch, while Miki just lies down across the topmost bleacher and stares at the dimming sky. I only remember just now that she only had one hand. Why I remember just now boggles me. Then I realize that it was the way that she carried herself that made me feel that she was normal. Hanging out with Miki almost made me forget that I was in a school for crip- the disabled.
The sky turns from bright blue to a slow melancholy orange. Night continues to fall. My stomach has already forgotten about my tiny brunch. It audibly grumbles. If Miki noticed, she doesn't let me know. She's been quiet for the past few hours. Maybe she fell asleep?
"Here it comes," she says. So she isn't asleep. What's comi-.
Suddenly, a bright explosion lights the twilight sky, followed by a bang. A second rocket shoots out of nowhere and fills the air with more tracers and sparks. Fireworks. Of course, a school with a hefty tuition and reputation could afford to have fireworks. It's a new sensation seeing them so close, though. I feel like watching the display from the rooftop would be a good plan, but a part of me is screaming not to do that. Though the smoke and sparks waft ever so close to where we're lying down, I and Miki don't budge an inch. I am so mesmerized by the display, I don't even close my eyes as the embers fly toward my face. It's a miracle I didn't go blind. One would think that the ashes would probably be piping hot, but it simply felt like it was raining light dust.
I sit at and contemplate the awe and beauty after the lights and sound fade away. There was silence, then applause from the booths, then the noise from the afternoon came back as if nothing happened.
"Hey," Miki says as she props herself up with an elbow. "Wanna grab some dinner?"
She knows.
"Sure," I say.
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